RAND & Women in Combat Roles. RAND Corporation provided a number of studies to the military that informed the Pentagon on the decision to open combat roles to women. This latest post to The RAND Blog details the various reports. (Feb 6, 2016).

Females Bulking Up. Anyone who has served in the infantry or close to it knows that one of the physical limitations that most women have is their ability to carry heavy loads on their backs or lift heavy objects. For the most part (there are a few exceptions) this is a a fact of life (or nature?). The imposition of height and weight standards within the military services is one measure of ensuring that our service personnel stay fit. If you are fat you are less likely to be a contributor to success on the battlefield. The top brass has been telling us that the standards will not be lowered when women are integrated into combat units. Well . . . here it comes. News flash: we are changing the standards. Women will are now able to exceed the height and weight standards in order to 'bulk up'. So the intent is to let women put on some muscle (which adds weight) giving them a better physique to handle that heavy rucksack and machine gun. Well, my prediction is that there will be a few (hundreds) that use this new policy to bulk up and put on some extra muscle. And there will be thousands who will now have an excuse for those extra pounds of fat because the new standards allow. According to the current standards a male is allowed to have 18% body fat and a women is allowed to have 26% body fat; let's see if that gets modified as well. Read "Female Marines may be allowed to bulk up as service opens infantry to women", The Washington Post, February 3, 2016.

Mountaineering, Women, and the What the Marines Could Learn. A mountaineer and former Marine - Joe Plenzier - thinks the USMC could learn a lot about how women can perform in combat units by looking at how women are performing in the the sport of mountain climbing. Read "What mountaineers can teach the Marines about how to integrate women", The Washington Post, February 3, 2016.